Habits of the High Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age

Quentin Schultze

Jan 1, 2003

Series: Volume 6 - 2003

Schultze, Quentin Habits of the High Tech Heart: Living Virtuously in the Information Age. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 2002

The important book contributes what is nearly always lacking in
discussions of cyberspace technologies: (1) a strong sense of moral
order as it impinges on our informational habits, (2) the cruciality of
character and community for all our communicative endeavors, (3) the
need to critically assess the nature and effects of new technologies
instead of merely ratifying their innovations and their potential to
"change everything" (supposedly for the better), (4) the theological
imperatives regarding our souls, beliefs, and behaviors. Let us hope
that this book will open up the moral, philosophical, and theological
discourse so sorely needed in our understanding of cyberspace
technologies. Schultze's effort is a kind of academic jeremiad, a lament that we have become (in the words of Thoreau's book Walden-not
cited by Schultze) "tools of our tools." To my knowledge, there is no
other book that calls the cyber-world to account before the higher
realities of God, the moral law, and the imperatives of virtue-outside
of my own book, The Soul in Cyberspace (Baker, 1997; Wipf and Stock reprint, 1999).

Habits of the High-Tech Heart is not another "how to" book or
a digitopian oracle. It is, rather, a sober and sobering assessment of
the downside of computer-mediated communication. As such, it is a
needed tonic to the mindless and irreligious hype that so often
accompanies the topic. For that matter, it is also an antidote for the
uncritical Christian hyping of the Internet as ushering in the next
great wave of evangelism and so on. I hope Schultze's book stirs other
Christian thinkers to think deeply and act wisely on this vital topic.
With the exception of Jacques Ellul, to date, the most cogent critiques
of cyber-culture have come from non-Christian thinkers (many of whom
Schultze cites) such as Neil Postman, Lewis Mumford, Swen Birkerts,
Theodore Rozsak, Clifford Stoll, and others.

Schultze also draws heavily from Alexis Tocqueville's insights-both
sociological and ethical-and to very good effect. Schultze drinks
deeply from Augustine and Kierkegaard. From them (and from other
notable modern Christian writers such as Eugene Peterson and Ellul) he
finds a significant point of reference-something far above and behind
the hypertrophied propaganda that pervades literature about cyberspace.
Theological critiques of culture must draw on both theological and
sociological sources. The "Audience of One" (Kierkegaard) must be
brought to bear on the pressing matters of our day. We must, at once,
exegete the Bible, our culture, and our own souls (in light of
Scripture and culture). Schultze's book is medicine for the soul in
this regard. Although his Christian commitment is firmly in place, he
crafts his prose in such a way as to draw in those who might not share
his perspective. Bravo! This is wise, and ought to be more common among
Christian critiques of culture. We evangelicals need a saner, wiser,
and more resonant cultural voice.

Although Schultze seems less taken with media-critic Marshall
McLuhan than I am, he realizes that the medium carries with it in-built
potentials for good and evil. I put it this way: no communications
medium is intrinsically good, intrinsically evil-or morally neutral.
Each medium has its own unique set of potentials for good and evil. As
Neil Postman sees it, each medium becomes a "metaphor" for culture. Or,
as McLuhan put it, "we become what we behold." If we value computers
for their speed and efficiency, we begin to value speed and efficiency
above all else. Other values-moral values-are either marginalized or
forgotten. As Schultze points out, this is why Bill Gates says that
religion is "inefficient." He should be doing something more productive
on Sunday morning that wasting time on religion.

We should remember that every medium must be culturally exegeted as
to its biases, limits, and potentials. Given the well-documented
American tradition of uncritical boosterism regarding technologies, the
darker side of these technologies have not been adequately analyzed.
But the Apostle John calls us to avoid worldliness and to embrace
godliness (1 John 2:15-17), as does the Apostle Paul (Romans 12:1-2).
Any Christian's unreflective use of cyberspace invites worldliness,
which undermines character, witness, and community.

The word "community" is everywhere used and typically abused. It
becomes a nearly meaningless term, such as "awesome" has in recent
years. Not every assemblage of people with some "connection" is a
"community," as Schultze highlights in his chapter, "Nurturing Virtue
in Community." The term ought to be reserved for those who are bound to
each other and bound to something beyond themselves in a personal
manner. True community is not possible on-line, although users of
computers may trade data. On-line communication is more personal and
responsible when one has already established a relationship with
someone off-line.

Along these lines, I routinely require my students to engage in some
kind of "media fast," in which they abstain from an electronic medium
for at least one week. During this time they are required to reflection
several portions of Scripture-the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the
Mount, the fruit of the Spirit, etc.-in light of their experiences. In
the six or so years I have been assigning this fast, the results have
been nothing less than profound for the vast majority of the students.
Having withdrawn from the world of TV, radio, computers, they find more
silence, time for reflection and prayer, and more opportunities to
engage family and friends thoughtfully. They become more peaceful and
contemplative-and begin to notice how media-saturated most of our
culture has become. So, we need some asceticism. Any area of culture
that decreases godliness and enhances worldliness must come under the
loving discipline of Jesus Christ-for his glory, for our good, and for
the good of those we serve. Christians need to withdraw from aspects of
our technological culture (which Postman calls a "Technopoly"-a culture
dominated by technology) in order to gain perspective on ourselves,
God, and our culture.

Schultze is right to claim that we "detechnologize our religious
traditions" (196-199). Every technology should pass through a "truth
filter" to determine its use in the church. For example, I recently
gave a message on Christ and culture to a group of about 80 ministers
and spouses. The jumbotron (large video screen) was used during worship
and to project the image of the man who introduced me. I requested that
it be turned off during my lecture, because I wanted to engage people
face-to-face. The video screen-although so common in so many aspects of
contemporary culture-did not belong in this setting. I later found that
this request offended several people on staff with the hosting church.
I tried to seek reconciliation, but to no avail.

Another example is when church-goers leaves their Bible's at home
because everything they need will be projected on a PowerPoint
presentation. Is this a good "habit of the heart"? How is this
technology undermining our respect for the Word? Many churches never
even ask these kinds of questions. But they must ask them if they read
and reflect on Habits of the High-Tech Heart.

Here is one last example of how technologies can work against us.
Another professor and I administered a doctrinal oral exam to one of
our Master of Divinity students. He did poorly when asked to relate the
larger narrative of Scripture to doctrine. We later found that his
method of study was primarily to use a computer program that printed
out acres of isolated Bible verses on various topics. By studying these
verses, he collected Bible "factoids" (as it were), but lacked a
deeper, wider, better sense of God's providential revelation as
recounted in Scripture.

Unless Americans take seriously the biases, limits, and meaning of
computer technologies (what they can do well, what they cannot do
well), "communal systems of moral meaning" will decline just as the
technologies "advance." Biblical notions of truth, virtue, character,
and community cannot be sustained entirely in cyberspace. As Schulze
writes, we need to speak with one another, worship with one another,
and remember the importance of geography and history! Without these
"habits of the heart," our data may increase, but our souls will
shrivel.